cubism

a style of painting and sculpture developed in the early 20th century, characterized chiefly by an emphasis on formal structure, the reduction of natural forms to their geometrical equivalents, and the organization of the planes of a represented object independently of representational requirements.

cubism

/ˈkjuːbɪzəm/

noun

1.

(often capital) a French school of painting, collage, relief, and sculpture initiated in 1907 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, which amalgamated viewpoints of natural forms into a multifaceted surface of geometrical planes

1911, from French cubisme, from cube (see cube (n.)), said to have been coined by French art critic Louis Vauxcelles at the 1908 Salon des Indépendants in reference to a work by Georges Braque. Related: Cubist.